TITLE: Lost Scene from Return of the King
NAME: Joanne Simpson
COUNTRY: Australia
EMAIL: jsimpson@acm.org
WEBPAGE: http://www.onewhiteraven.com
TOPIC: Mythology
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: telperio.jpg
ZIPFILE: telperio.zip
RENDERER USED:
Povray 3.5
TOOLS USED:
PovRay, Gilles Tran's Maketree macro, Wings3D, Photoshop
RENDER TIME:
18 min
IMAGE DESCRIPTION:
Mythology doesn't have to be ancient. A mythcan be any story that resonates in
hearts and minds and endures in a culture. I chose a modern myth, Lord of the
Rings, after visiting many of the locations in the film in New Zealand. In this
scene from Return of the King, Aragorn and Gandalf discover the young tree
destined to replace the long-dead tree in the courtyard of Minas Tirith...
"Then Aragorn turned, and there was a stony slope behind him running down from
the skirts of the snow; and as he looked he was aware that alone there in the
waste a growing thing stood. And he climbed to it, and saw that out of the very
edge of the snow there sprang a sapling tree no more than three foot high.
Already it had put forth leaves long and shapely, dark above and silver
beneath, and upon its slender crown it bore one small cluster of flowers whose
white petals shone like the sunlight snow."
"Then Aragorn cried: 'Ye! utuvienyes! I have found it! Lo! for here is a scion
of the Eldest of Trees!"
DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:
Elements:
snow - modelled in Wings 3D and imported as a mesh2 with a multi-layered texture
map applied in PovRay
stony slope - height field created in Photoshop
tree - generated in Povray using Gilles Tran's maketree macro
flowers - light source wrapped around a flower shape modelled in Wings 3D.
Lighting:
three spotlights in different colours, slightly offset to give a soft light,
plus a point light for the flower.
Atmosphere:
a simple gray constant fog. I tried different media effects, but nothing worked
as well as simplicity. The biggest challenge was fading the background into the
distance without dulling the tree down too much.